Every year, across the world, 12 million individuals get cancer of which about 7.5 million will die. Under current trends, by year 2010 cancer will become one of the leading single causes of death worldwide.
Current cancer therapies using chemotherapeutic agents and radiation beyond stage 3 cancer are an abject failure. Beyond stage 3 cancer, these strategies often buy the patient only some extra time; but this comes at the heavy cost of extreme suffering and reduction in quality of life for the majority of patients.
In private, many cancer experts suggest that the most promising approach for the future in treating cancers is through the control of the immune system. Clinically verified cases of spontaneous remission exist, suggesting that the failure of the immune system to generate a proper response is central to the problem of cancer. The body fails to generate a functional vaccine against the cancer allowing the cancer to grow uncontrollably.
Elevated concentrations of various cytokines, cytokine receptors, and gangliosides (glycosphingolipids), are known to be immunosuppressive and are, as a group, known as soluble inhibitors of the immune system and of immune system function (hereinafter referred to as “soluble inhibitors”). The following non-exhaustive list are known members of the class of soluble inhibitors of the immune system: gangliosides; all known growth factors, most notably TNF-alpha, TGF-beta and variants, PDGF, EGF, IGF and variants, FGF and variants and VEGF; all known inflammatory cytokine receptors most notably the TNF-alpha family—TNF-R1, TNF-R2, CD40L, NGFR, TRAIL and variants, FASL, IL-1R1, IL1R2, IL-2R, IL-3R, IL-5R, IL-6R, IL-7R, GM-CSFR, IL-9R, IL-12R, and erythropoietin receptor. Many patients and most cancer patients have elevated levels of one or more soluble inhibitors which compromise their immune system and inhibit the body from controlling pathogens including bacteria, viruses and cancers.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,156,305 ('305 patent) which is incorporated herein by reference discloses a method of preventing and treating cancer by implanting cancer cells into mammals with a single chamber implant device. The tumor cells can be the patient's own tumor cells or processed tumor cells that contain antigens present in the patient's tumor cells. The boundary of the implant prevents cell to cell contact between the patient's immune system and the tumor cells but allows sub-cellular materials to pass through the chamber. The '305 patent claims a 60% remission rate in tumor bearing experimental animals.